Sameer Ranjan Sahoo v. State of Odisha
Case brief
What is this about?
The High Court struck down an amendment to the Odisha Engineering Service Rules and the subsequent recruitment advertisement that mandated selection based solely on GATE scores. The Court held that the State Government violated the mandatory consultation requirement of Article 320 by failing to consider the Public Service Commission's adverse opinion, having misled the Cabinet. Furthermore, the substitution of traditional evaluation methods with GATE scores was deemed arbitrary and discriminatory, depriving candidates of fair assessment of their practical knowledge and creating unreasonable distinctions among eligible engineering graduates. Consequently, the challenged rules and advertisement were quashed, restoring the original recruitment process.
What did the court decide?
Amendment Rules 2021 (Rules 4(i) and 4(ii)) are struck down; Advertisement No. 20-2022-23 is quashed; Original OES Rules 2012 restored.